USA - James dumps Cavs, moves to Miami

GREENWICH (NBA) - LeBron James has chosen the Miami Heat.
 
The NBA's reigning MVP, without a championship ring since entering the league in 2003 straight out of high school and spending his entire career with the Cleveland Cavaliers in his home state of Ohio, announced on national television on Thursday night that he would play with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami.
 
The move to South Beach for James, an unrestricted free agent, probably makes the Heat favorites to win the Eastern Conference.
 
Cleveland, the Chicago Bulls, New York Knicks, New Jersey Nets and the Los Angeles Clippers all made pitches to James but in the end, he chose the Heat.
 
James' decision to leave Cleveland, which is just 40 minutes from his hometown of Akron, did not sit well with Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert.
 
The Cavs supremo wrote in a scathing open letter to the city: “You simply don’t deserve this kind of cowardly betrayal.”
 
On Thursday night, some Cavs fans burned James jerseys.
 
Gilbert also made a declaration, written in capital letters and clearly one that was full of anger, in his open letter.
 
He wrote: "I PERSONALLY GUARANTEE THAT THE CLEVELAND CAVALIERS WILL WIN AN NBA CHAMPIONSHIP BEFORE THE SELF-TITLED FORMER 'KING' WINS ONE.
 
"You can take it to the bank."
 
James tried to look at ease on the hour-long show that his representatives had arranged on ESPN.
 
He claimed that he had "never wanted to leave Cleveland."
 
"I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James," he said.
 
"I feel awful. I feel even worse that I wasn't able to bring an NBA championship to that city."
 
Now the Heat have three Team USA Olympic gold-medal winners on their roster in Wade, Bosh and James.
 
All three were free agents.
 
Wade had flirted with a move to his hometown of Chicago but stayed, while Bosh has arrived from Toronto and James from Cleveland.
 
Heat president Pat Riley said: "We are looking forward to the opportunity of building something that our fans in Miami will be proud of for a long, long time.
 
"The journey is just beginning."
 
James, who signed a seven-year, $93million contract with Nike before he’d even bounced a ball in the league, earlier this year penned an extension with the sportswear manufacturing giants.
 
He could have earned more money in his NBA paycheck had he remained in Cleveland.
 
"I easily could have taken the money, or I could have asked Cleveland to do a sign-and-trade and I could have got the six years and got the money," James said.
 
"It wasn't about the money. It was about uniting with two guys, uniting with a franchise that I believe we can compete for not one year, but like I said, for these five years and maybe so on, after that. So it had nothing to do with money."
 
FIBA